Tag: 2009

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Searching beyond 2009

I was reviewing the Google Zeitgeist page showing the top searches, patterns and trends of 2009.

zeit·geist | Pronunciation: ‘tsIt-“gIst, ‘zIt | Function: noun | Etymology: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit) | Date: 1884 | Meaning: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.

The information is interesting and enlightening, in that I, in no way follow any popular trends in the US. I must be fringe, or just don’t care that much about celebrity or movie/tv entertainment: 7 of top 10 Google News – Fastest Rising, 6 of top 10 Google.com – Fastest Rising, and 100% of Google Image Search top 10 are all such trends.

Google had dedicated trend pages for both Entertaining and Celebrity. If I dive deeper into these pages, I’m further aware that none of these celebrities are of interest to me except Michael Jackson and Les Paul. On the top ten TV and movies lists, I watch none of the TV shows (although that’s not a surprise as I don’t watch too much TV) and have only seen Star Trek and Avatar of the movie list. On the concert list, I’ve scene Blink 182 and U2 and don’t care to see them again, or the rest on that list.

One story I’m impressed made the list is the Missing Link as the finding of “Ida” in Germany further shows evidence of evolution of humans. Stories like this make me wonder how humans will evolve in another 47 million years (if we make it past the 2000s first).

Regarding Sports, Yankees, Steelers, Lakers, Red Wings, Roger Federer and of course Tiger Woods are all on top – no surprise for any. I am a little surprise that Coach K is the top and that the coaches list is dominated by American NFL Football and college basketball coaches. Lane Kiffin is well on his way to top the list of 2010 (and the one issue I’m on the side of Al Davis). Interesting too to see that Americans favor searching Chelsea football – the team I follow for now Arsenal is ranked 5th.

Here in New York, top searches seem to be all services except I’m quite shocked that Hale and Hearty topped Shake Shack in local food searches. Soup and salads over burgers? maybe New Yorkers are trying to get healthy on their own and DON’T NEED a salt ban (get it Bloomberg?).

The economy, healthcare (swine flu & universal health care), scandals (Bernie Madoff & Mark Sanford), bailouts (TARP & AIG) and disasters (tsunamis and earthquakes) all topped in the news for 2009 and will continue in some form into 2010. Haiti already starting the disaster trending again this year.

The Stooges – Search And Destroy
[audio:http://apt104.com/Aug%2009/iggy/12%20Search%20And%20Destroy.mp3]

photo365_2010_013
Traveling Smoker in front of 5th Ave Apple Store

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2009 NCAA Men’s Tournament Bracket

I’ve been so busy with work, I haven’t had a change to watch much ball these last few months. I’ve caught a few Kansas, Gators, Pitt, UConn, UCLA and Memphis games but I almost missed the deadline to get in a bracket. I spent time analyzing blogs, radio shows and ESPN and came up with the NEO bracket. Then from there did two more variants for two other “leagues”.

My Round 1 Upsets are (based on the NEO research):
Siena over Ohio St. : Siena is a sleeper for sure. They went big last year and I think will give Louisville a run

USC over Boston College : BC is streaky (4 game loss streak including Harvard at home?). USC won the Pac-10 championship going through Arizona St., Cal, and UCLA.

Texas A&M over BYU : These two have meet before and BYU hasn’t won in the first round in 6 years. The Aggies will make that 7.

Northern Iowa over Purdue : The is my only stretch 5-12 upsets because I still think Purdue is a sleeper to go to 16s if they do beat UNI. The Boilermakers haven’t been full strength all season and if UNI keeps it close it will go their way. (in my other two bracket’s I’ve taken Purdue).

Maryland over California : Cal has great three point shooting with Randle, Christopher, and Robertson. The ex-Stanford coach, Mike Montgomery has tournament experience but these guys aren’t that big. I’m still a Bear’s fan secretly hoping I’m wrong in this pick. The Terrapins can turn up the D, like they did beating Wake Forest and UNC so I’m picking them in this one.

Tennessee over Oklahoma St. : I know nothing about these two, but I have read terrible stats about Tenn. and the Cowboys suck at D. This is just one of those fluke wins where Oklahoma fails more than Tennessee steps up.

VCU over UCLA : Yes, UCLA has been in the final four the last three years and have Collison and Shipp but history doesn’t matter: it’s what happens on the court this year. VCU though won the Colonial Athletic Association tournament. Maynor leads the team in scoring (22.4) and with Sanders’s size they’ll be disruptive to UCLA. It’ll be a great game to watch.

Western KY over Illlinois : This is my strong 5-12 upset prediction. WKY beat Drake with a buzzer beater last year and this year they’ll hit the headlines again beating Illinois. They beat Louisville early on and have been crushing the competition lately by winning 15 of their last 17 games.

Michigan over Clemson : Clemson made it into this tournament with their defense and turn over conversion but unfortunately for them Michigan has sticky fingers which won’t give them any advantage. With Clemson coming off losing four of their last five, they are down and soon to be out.

I think the BIGGEST upset on my bracket is LSU taking out North Carolina in the 2nd round. The X factor here is Ty Lawson who isn’t expected to play today and if he can go on Friday, I don’t expect him to be effective, putting UNC at a disadvantage and hopless as LSU blindsides them with a win.

My Final Four are: Louisville, Memphis, Pittsburgh and Syracuse with Pitt and Memphis meeting in the National Championships and Memphis taking the title. Here’s my brackets:

NEO Bracket:

QFunk Bracket

A6 Bracket

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Last Day – First Day

Some people say that how you spend the last and first days of the year signify the summary and prequel to the year respectively. I don’t give much stock in foretelling my life and future by Aloysius Lilius’s calendar but my New Year’s eve and day was spent with friends and family.

The I went with some of E’s family to Jane & Roberts crib of a California BBQ; something I miss having both the property and weather to do year round. J&R know how to grill it up as I found out last year at Thousand Trails park (I think?). This eve Robert was spearing slabs of Korean marinated bbq short ribs, tri tip, rotisserie chicken, kielbasa sausages, lumpia, and chicken wings on the grill. Couple that with some sweat potatoes, salads, friend banana, egg rolls, rice, noodles and someone ordered a stack of pizzas, this turned out to be a fantastic last meal of 08.

We caught up and moved on to Adam12’s spot to hang with some other local south bay hoodrats. Joy is starting to fill out with 5 months to go and so is another friend, Linda also due about the same time. With E not drinking to avoid any DUI-legal-death issues, I was looking more like the lush of the party poping Cava, and taking back Stellas till the West coast broad cast of the NY Time Square ball drop.

While E was catching up with all the pregnant women, I was entertained by fascinating stories of conspiracy and ruling elite bloodlines from PopDz, Trip getting closer to graduation/quitting, and some rawkus games of The Pit – a card game fashioned from the energy and dealings of the stock market trading floor.

The alarm rang and we switched from the warm up tunes to the animatronic Dick Clark hosting the new year. He looks almost life like! 3…2…1… Rockband!

We started some sets of karaoke, rocking out to Blondie and Rod Stewart. I tried my hand at both bass and drums, of which the former being closer to my skill set being so inebriated. The game comes with a drum set, guitar, mike and 50+ songs to sing and rock out to. I quickly learned (from the booing) my failures to keep rhythm were causing the whole band to come down. I definitely can get into this but would need a 2nd show as I should have canceled my NYE on on being too “sick”.

This New Year wasn’t a huge party but a more mellow send off of the death of 08 and ring in of 09 with friends food and good times. Here’s to a great New Year!